If it just seems like the first Friday of the month wasn't the same without being able to pore through the Bureau of Labor Statistics' hotly watched monthly jobs report, don't worry. You probably didn't miss much. While the BLS has gone dark with the shutdown in Washington, other reports outside the government data suggest the labor market just plodded along in September. The Dow Jones consensus forecast was for growth of 51,000 in nonfarm payrolls with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3%. High-frequency data that includes job postings, private payrolls and state-by-state figures...
The U.S. Census Bureau will release the country's Retail Sales report on Friday. Market analysts expect headline Retail Sales to grow 0.5% monthly in July, following a slightly higher increase in June, indicating that consumption remains strong. Consumers appear to have flocked to shopping malls, responding to summer sales and seeking to avoid further price increases resulting from higher trade tariffs. Consumer spending unexpectedly recovered in June after a 0.9% decline in May. Retail and food services grew 0.6%, totaling USD 720.1 billion in June, driven by the broad recovery. Excluding...
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held talks in Alaska on Friday (August 15). The US president's hopes of reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine remain uncertain, but Putin's latest offer of a possible nuclear deal could help both sides save face. The meeting of the Russian and US leaders at a Cold War-era air force base in Alaska, their first face-to-face talks since Trump returned to the White House, comes amid concerns in Ukraine and Europe that Trump may betray Kyiv. Trump, who once said he would end Russia's war in Ukraine within 24 hours, said on Thursday that the three-and-a-half-year...
A jump in wholesale prices is likely to bolster concerns among Federal Reserve policymakers that rising inflation remains a risk, intensifying debate over the rationale for an interest rate cut next month and leaving the tension between the U.S. central bank and the White House unresolved. The Producer Price Index increased 0.9% in July on a month-over-month basis, well above economists' expectations, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday. Trade services inflation, a measure of retail and wholesale margins, rose 2%, the fastest pace in a couple of years and...
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he thought Vladimir Putin was ready to make a deal on ending the war in Ukraine after the Russian president floated the prospect of a nuclear arms agreement on the eve of their summit in Alaska. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies have intensified their efforts this week to prevent any deal between the U.S. and Russia emerging from Friday's summit that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to future attack. "I think he's going to make a deal," Trump said in a Fox News radio interview, adding that if the meeting went well he would...
Core producer prices in the United States, which exclude food and energy, rose by 0.9% over a month in July 2025, marking the strongest increase since March 2022, after being flat in June. Figures came above market estimates of a 0.2% increase. On a yearly basis, core producer prices surged by 3.3% in July, after an upwardly revised 2.4% rise in the prior month and also surpassing forecasts of a 2.5% advance. Source: Trading Economics
Asia-Pacific markets traded higher, tracking Wall Street gains overnight.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.41% after hitting a fresh record high on Thursday, while the Topix added 0.61%. South...
Both the STOXX 50 and STOXX 600 hovered around the flatline on Friday, as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of further developments in trade talks between US President Trump and Chinese...
The U.S. government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday as deep partisan divisions prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal, setting off what could be a long,...